All Premiere: "arms that work," "Lost in Light," "Kammermusik No. 3," and "Sum Stravinsky" Pacific Northwest Ballet McCaw Hall Seattle, Washington 3 November 2012 (matinee and evening)
by Helene Kaplan copyright 2012 by Helene Kaplan
Peter Boal spoke and wrote that presenting a program of world premieres was a risk. When it was all over, the program felt familiar, even cozy. The new Mark Morris ballet, "Kammermusik No. 3" fit into the cooler end of the neoclassical spectrum, like Boal's choices by Ratmansky, Wheeldon, Robbins, and previously unknown-to-Seattle Balanchine, but the ballets "Sum Stravinsky" by Kiyon Gaines and "Lost in Light" by Margaret Mullin, and the contemporary work, Andrew Bartee's "arms that work," had a warmth and diversity that could easily have been part of a program by Francia Russell and Kent Stowell, who presented company premieres of works by Tudor, Dumais, Caniparoli, Gibson, and Limon and who gave Kiyon Gaines and Olivier Wevers their first opportunities on the Main Stage.
"The Golden Cockerel" The Royal Danish Ballet Operaen Store Scene Copenhagen, Denmark 28 September 2012
by Helene Kaplan copyright 2012 by Helene Kaplan
At the end of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Golden Cockerel" the Astrologer tells the audience that only he and the Queen of Shermakhan are real human characters. In Ratmansky's new version for the Royal Danish Ballet which premiered in September, these two characters are so viscerally alive compared to the rest that no disclaimer is necessary, and they are squarely within two great traditions of the Royal Danish Ballet: conveying underlying, roiling emotion in mime and storytelling. For the rest of the cast, Alexei Ratmansky's "The Golden Cockerel" made yeoman demands in mime, particularly in telling an unfamiliar story clearly and concisely, but as two-dimensional archetypes -- the coddling nurse, the sulky Princes, the maidens, the happy loves, the bereaved fiancee, the King's useless advisors, the Golden Cockerel -- and the development of underlying emotion was not an option for most of the ballet. This is the antithesis of what the Company does and what its audience expects from it.
For the opening of this 40th Anniversary Season, Peter Boal originally envisioned an all-Stravinsky program to honor Founding Artistic Directors Francia Russell and Kent Stowell, with a Balanchine staging by Russell and th "Firebird" choreographed by Stowell. As in recent seasons, Boal had to re-arrange the puzzle pieces of the schedule, and as a result, he chose Stowell's "Cinderella," last seen two years ago after a long hiatus, as the season opener, with a nod to the Stravinsky in a one-time performance of Jerome Robbins' "Circus Polka." A tribute to Russell's continuing legacy as a stager will come in the season-ending "Director's Choice" program in "Agon"; "Cinderella" celebrates her other key legacy -- perhaps more important for the Seattle ballet community -- in the creation and direction of the school, which is showcased in the many roles for children in the production. It is also a bittersweet tribute to the great designer, Martin Pakledinaz, whose costumes grace the stage. Finally the work shows Stowell at his best: as a story-teller who creates rich thematic layers and clear narrative, and who confidently takes a patient pace in a full-length neo-classical story ballet.
Pacific Northwest Ballet ended the 2011-12 season with a revival of its 2010 re-designed production of "Coppelia": Roberta Guidi di Bagno's designs looked as fresh and beautiful as when it debuted, and the score sounded as ravishing. Opening the run as Swanhilde was the company's reigning senior ballerina, Kaori Nakamura, and closing it was one of the company's newest corps members, Leta Biasucci. (It also featured the newest company Principals, Rachel Foster and Lesley Rausch, both of whom debuted in 2010.) Jeffrey Stanton, who retired from the company last season, returned to reprise Dr. Coppelius with Nakamura, and corps member Ezra Thomson made his debut in the role with Biasucci. I saw the second/last performances of these two casts.
"Episodes" is a rarity in the Balanchine canon in many ways: originally half of a joint project with Martha Graham, set to multiple works by a single composer, Anton Webern, that span nearly a quarter century of composition, and comprised of four connected works, three of them multi-movement pieces, each of which could stand alone, but together, are greater than the whole. While "Agon," "Four Temperaments," and "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" appear on more and more company calendars, productions of "Episodes" are much rarer, and the challenge greater, since it was created for one of the, if not the, strongest assemblage of ballerinas in a neoclassical work: Violette Verdy, Diana Adams, Allegra Kent, and Melissa Hayden, partnered by Jonathan Watts, Jacques d'Amboise, Nicholas Magallanes, and Francisco Moncion. With staging by Joysanne Sidimus, Ballet Arizona took on that challenge, and while not as consistently strong as last year's excellent company premieres of "Monumentum pro Gesualdo"/"Movements for Orchestra", it was a remarkable new addition to the company's season-ending "All Balanchine" program .
"All Wheeldon" "Carousel (A Dance)", "After the Rain Pas de deux", "Polyphonia", and "Variations Serieuses" Pacific Northwest Ballet McCaw Hall Seattle, Washington 24 September 2011 (matinee and evening)
On the morning before Pacific Northwest Ballet's second program of the season, "Love Stories", which features company premieres of Balanchine's "Divertimento from 'La Baiser de la fee'" and Robbins' "Afternoon of a Faun" in addition to "After Petipa" classic pas de deux, the memory of the "All Wheeldon" program from September still lingers. Often mixed programs featuring one choreographer show that choreographer's limitations, and Wheeldon has received criticism for the inconsistency of his output -- I've seen some outside PNB that warrants it -- as well as for not being the next Balanchine. PNB's "All Wheeldon" program, comprised of the four ballets by Christopher Wheeldon in the Company's rep, showed the choreographer's richness of invention and belied easy categorization of these works, and, as a result, each work made an even stronger impression. Whatever the logic and intention behind granting permission to and acquiring these specific works for the Company, it worked like a charm.
"After Petipa" Doug Fullington with Christina Siemens (piano) and Batkhurel Bold, Karel Cruz, Kyle Davis, Rachel Foster, Carrie Imler, Kylee Kitchens, Carla Körbes, William Lin-Yee, Kaori Nakamura, Sarah Ricard Orza, Jonathan Porretta, Lucien Postlewaite, Lesley Raush, Brittany Reid, and Jerome Tisserand of Pacific Northwest Ballet Phelps Center Seattle, Washington 20 October 2011
Last night in the stage-sized Pacific Northwest Ballet Studio C, Doug Fullington presented "After Petipa", the latest in a series of presentations that feature reconstructions from Stepanov notation of excepts of Petipa's works and compare 19th and early 20th century versions of the classics to current versions and the works of his choreographic descendants. "After Petipa" focused on three pas de deux from "Swan Lake" and "Sleeping Beauty", and while the program was more narrowly focused than previous programs, it was no less illuminating and revelatory. The comparisons illustrated several underlying themes: the simplicity of the reconstructed versions to faster tempos, the remarkably similar floor patterns in many old and new versions, changes and re-arrangements of the music between the premieres and the Petipa revivals, the incorporation of drama into the dance movements to replace original mime in pas d'action, and the distinct transition from the Cecchetti-influenced petite allegro with many connecting steps to grande allegro.
"La Valse", "Monumentum pro Gesualdo", "Movements for Orchestra", "Theme and Variations" Ballet Arizona Symphony Hall Phoenix, Arizona Sunday, 5 June 2011
by Helene Kaplan copyright 2011 by Helene Kaplan
The season closing all-Balanchine program at Ballet Arizona is an opportunity to compare revivals to past performance, new additions to revivals, and stylistic differences and similarities among the ballets. This year's program shows the company at its strongest, taking on the technical challenges with ease and authority, but, more importantly, presenting each ballet on its own terms, from the dynamism of "La Valse" to the gentle neoclassicism of "Monumentum pro Gesualdo", the quirkiness and wit of "Movements for Orchestra", and the majesty of "Theme and Variations" by often overlapping casts.
“Contemporary 4” “Pacific”, “Place a Chill”, “The Piano Dance”, “Concerto DSCH” Pacific Northwest Ballet McCaw Hall Seattle, Washington 18 March 2011 19 March 2011, matinee and evening
Helene Kaplan copyright 2011 by Helene Kaplan
When Peter Boal was asked how he chose the works for the “Contemporary 4” program, he replied that he wanted to present Alexei Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH” as soon as New York City Ballet’s exclusivity rights expired, and the rest he picked up from the cutting room floor, refusing to postpone them any longer. It turned out to be serendipity, a feast for the eyes and ears, and with two ballets that could take pride of place in any classical company’s repertoire.
"All Tharp": "Opus 111," "Afternoon Ball", and "Waterbaby Bagatelles" Pacific Northwest Ballet McCaw Hall Seattle, Washington 5 November 2010, dedicated to the memory of Katherine E. Zappone 6 November 2010 matinee and evening
by Helene Kaplan copyright 2010 by Helene Kaplan
"Twyla loves her men," PNB Principal Dancer Jonathan Porretta said at a post-performance Q&A following PNB's opening night performance of its "All Tharp" program. In the lilting, lyrical sections of "Opus 111", the character-driven protagonists of "Afternoon Ball", and the virtuosic, if plain, choreography for the lead and the beautifully integrated and varied solos for the corps men in "Waterbaby Bagatelles", the men of PNB look a wide range of great. In "Opus 111", the opening work set to a string quintet by Brahms, the women look cut off at the knees, with their flat feet -- it's performed in ballet slippers -- and bent knees with not enough plie in the choreography to give them juice. The truism about ballet dancers dancing modern and looking earthbound instead of in the floor mainly held here for the women. The choppy phrasing of much of the choreography as one idea supplants another stunts a lot of the momentum, and the transitions out of the many and difficult mid-body lifts, which on ice would be terrific because the women could glide rather than stumble out of them, are, to quote the United Airlines safety video, "heavy and awkward". It's as if the men are performing in "Dances at a Gathering", and the women are in another dance, with the women getting the short end of the stick.
